Be courageous; keep jobs in U.S.

Published 12:20 am, Saturday, September 10, 2011

Jobs are on everybody's mind, and the unemployment rate seems to be the major issue for the next campaign. The problem is that neither party is willing to step up to the issue that is causing the unemployment rate to stagnate.

Our President is trying to pull a solution from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's tool box, and fix unemployment by creating jobs to improve the country's infrastructure. That's simply not a good plan. First, we can't afford it. Second, we couldn't create enough jobs to make a permanent dent in the jobless rate.

The Republican frontrunners have pulled out the old trickle-down approach from the Reagan era. Cut taxes for business, eliminate regulation and, miraculously, jobs will be created. That didn't work for Reagan, and it's not going to work now. It will only make the unemployment issue worse.

If we're really serious about improving the situation, we must be willing to take bold actions. We have to force big business to stop sending jobs overseas.

We can't use public funds to pay big business to create public works jobs, nor should we be cutting business' tax bill or deregulating. Just the opposite.

It's time the administration and Congress stood up to these corporations, and said, "If you want to increase your profits by sending our jobs to foreign countries, we'll tax those extra profits at 85 percent." Then you'll see how quickly the unemployment rate drops.

It will take courage to engineer this economy and fix this problem. Unfortunately, courage seems to be a trait that doesn't exist in Washington anymore. So all we get is the same ol' same ol'.